
This 9-in-1 USB dock with a Blu-ray drive just smashed its Kickstarter goal by 300x—as backers succumb to dongle fatigue and physical media nostalgia
THE SO WHAT
300x overfunding for a Blu-ray USB hub is less about optical drives and more about fatigue with fragile, single-purpose dongles. Hardware teams should read this as demand for dense, reliable, multi-function I/O bricks—not another minimalist port compromise.
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